


muscle memory

by corduroywords



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon Compliant, M/M, POV Outsider, Post-Canon Fix-It, Sheithlentines 2019, Single dad Shiro, but like. allura's alive, i didnt even watch s8 bcs i have no self control n spoiled it for myself, so this may not be super duper accurate, sometimes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-25
Updated: 2019-02-25
Packaged: 2019-11-05 06:54:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,196
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17913956
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/corduroywords/pseuds/corduroywords
Summary: Some people are just meant to be in your narrative. Let them in. Make them stay.“You’re kidding.” Keith turns back to look at Shiro, grips a hand on the railing, incredulous. “That kind of love? God, that kind of shit? Falling in there? That’s the kind of pit you can't come out of.”“What did you do?” Shiro’s heart is pumping in his ears.Keith tilts his head to look up at the sky, almost serenely. The arch of his neck looks like the moonlight Shiro sees patches of on his sheets when he wakes in the middle of the night. “I tried to crawl and climb and pull myself out. I got a ladder. I made someone toss me a rope. I spent years mastering how to scale a mountain. Twenty people used their limbs to form a chain. My mom hired a helicopter. I broke every single fingernail. I tried every fucking day.”





	muscle memory

**Author's Note:**

> this was written for Loris in sheithlentines !! i hope you enjoy bb. this was healing to write. thank u.

_2 hours before ceremony_

 

“I’m nervous.”

“I know, Shiro. You’ll do fine.”

“I’m still nervous.”

“Hey. You’re getting married. Be happy. I am. For you.”

Allura paused from her careful crawl behind piled tables and chairs. She’d thought she’d been alone in the storage room after losing an earring trying to retrieve an extra chair, but obviously not.

Shiro. Keith.

This sounds like it's about to get meaningful, heartfelt, and she wants to give them the privacy for it but she doesn’t want to interrupt…

Allura tries to get up as discreetly as possible, but when she rises she feels a tug and sharp pain on her scalp preventing her. Groaning, she realizes her hair is snagged on the back screws of a chair. She sighs. “Hello, Shiro, Keith,” she says meekly.

A pause. Then footsteps as they approach together. “Allura?” Shiro calls.

“Here,” she mutters apologetically. “I’m stuck.”

Allura can see them try to squeeze in between a crack from the corner of her eye; she can’t move her head. “My hair. And dress.”

The two of them gently pull and pry before Keith grows impatient and retrieves his knife from the waistline of his dress pants and unscrews the screw with the tip. “Thank you,” Allura exhales when she’s freed as they help her up.

“How did you get stuck?” Shiro asks. His eyes linger on Keith a little, likely thinking of their unfinished conversation.

“I lost my earring. I was trying to look for it,” she explains a tad sheepishly as she brushes her empty left lobe with a finger.

“We’ll help you,” Shiro says without missing a beat, and Keith is already nodding and kneeling down.

“It’s fine,” Allura hurriedly interjects. She doesn’t want to ruin the moment they were having. “Your suits will get dirty,” she adds.

“Get some water, Allura,” Keith murmurs. “You’ve been running around all day. There’s some in the corner in a big case.” He looks up to meet her eyes and smiles tightly. Up close, he looks tired.

“...Thank you,” she accepts finally with a hand against her heart, stepping away to the place Keith told her to go.

It’s there: a large crate of plastic bottles and she chugs one gratefully. The wedding’s been non-stop, and there was an unspoken agreement that she was the relations peacekeeper, flitting around and breaking up fights stemmed from the stress of a big day like this. It’s not often a beloved leader known for his explorations and genuine love for space and all its vastness decides to settle down.

To this day, his decision still stuns Allura, but her respect for him keeps her quiet.

She glances towards Shiro and Keith, watching fondly as they crawl on hands and knees just for her earring. The two of them barely fit together between the piles of chairs. Her smile falters though when she notices Keith wincing when Shiro’s arm brushes against his accidentally. It’s unusual, and concerning because Shiro places a hand on his shoulder, his brows knitting together but Keith just brushes him off with a muttered excuse about having to find the earring as he ducks under a table, emerging with the earring in hand.

“Found it,” he says and gets himself up to cross the room and hand it off to Allura, who accepts it with a pleased sigh. She dusts it off, Shiro coming over to join them.

“You two are lifesavers,” Allura says, inserting her earring. When it’s in, she flicks the dangling bottom bit with a hum. Lance had given it to her. "Something sparkly," he'd said.

“No problem,” they say, words overlapping. Always in sync, Allura thinks, and opens the exit door open for them as they step out.

It’s crisp outside, spring blooming away. People roam the gardens, and Allura takes a moment just to listen to the hum of conversation. Everyone looks amazing in pressed suits and flowy dresses. She can only hope that her and Lance's wedding would be like this. It really is the perfect time for a wedding. The inner romantic in her is quieter than usual today, strangely. Shiro and Keith are behind her, looking around. Beside each other, they look stunning. They bring _out_ each other. Complementary colors, Colleen had called them once.

It was funny. Allura had thought them together, once. Bonds like that were the ones she saw on the big screens she’d started watching films on when they arrived on Earth. The ones that were dramatic and intense that sacrifice for one another, but always end up together in the end. Perhaps that was why everything felt off today. The flowers felt off. The suits felt off. Keith felt off.

Again though, her respect for Shiro was keeping her quiet. Her happiness for him was overshadowing her confusion. They would be fine.

They linger behind her, and then Keith stops walking suddenly, turning to Shiro, looking like he’s steeling himself. He takes a breath, before glancing at Allura.

“I can leave,” she says quickly, noticing the hesitation. 

“No, no,” Keith says just as fast. “Stay. It’s really...not that big of a deal. I just--,” he inhales, looking pained, looking up at Shiro. There’s a beat, before he forces out, “I love you.” Each syllable sounds agonizing, even with its breathy speed. Allura’s breath catches. “Don’t say it back,” Keith murmurs. “Seriously. I just needed to say it. Sorry--”

“Don’t say sorry,” Shiro interrupts. His expression is surprised, but oddly strained. He’s trying to look normal, Allura notices. As if this is a normal occurrence.

“Don’t interrupt me,” Keith grits out, looking like he surprised himself. He sighs, running a hand through his hair. “Sorry. I’m just… nervous,” he lands on, and Allura looks away. No matter how much Keith says it’s fine if she stays, she knows this is them and them only. She begins stepping away quietly.

“Why are you nervous?” Allura hears Shiro chuckle from behind her, though it’s strained. “I’m the one that’s nervous, remember?”

“I’m your best man,” Keith says quietly. Allura can barely hear it from where she is. “Thank you, again.”

“It’s nothing,” Shiro says with a smile in his voice. “You always are, anyway.”

Allura closes her eyes. She has to be at least five meters away from them now. She inhales, exhales, asks herself why the romantic in her aches.

 

* * *

  


(I think we were devastating.)

 

* * *

  


_1 year, 8 months after ceremony_

 

Matt receives the call at around four am.

Before Kerberos, before the Galra, before robot girlfriends and rebel forces, Matt was known as a heavy sleeper. He went to bed late and woke up late.

Things change.

He startles open when he hears the ring of his tablet and rolls over to accept the call. “This better be important or I swear, I’m--”

“It’s Shiro,” the voice breathes out over the line. He sounds exhausted.

Matt slowly settles back down in his bed, his features softening. “Hey nerd,” he says.

Another slow breath. A baby crying in the background whose wail Matt can pick out of a crowd. “Matt,” Shiro begins, his words coming out in exhales. Matt prepares himself for having to comfort Shiro, soothe him, verbally slap him to get it together as any best friend would, but Shiro seems to sigh and change tactic. “I’m sorry if I woke you up.”

“Nah. I was just getting up anyway,” Matt says, rubbing his eyes. He stifles a yawn. “You know me. Always gotta be ready. Sleep who?”

“Wish I knew her,” Shiro chuckles quietly. Concern flares up in Matt.

“...is Atlas crying again?”

“I’m sure you can already hear it.” There’s a brittle kind of smile in his voice that twists something in Matt’s stomach.

Matt remembers the day Shiro had named Atlas. Ten minutes after he’d adopted a one-year-old infant, he called the Holts and told them that he was naming him Atlas. “After the ship that gave me purpose,” he’d said, but quickly remembered that it meant ‘to carry’ later. “I don’t want him with the world on his shoulders,” Shiro slurred two months later on Matt’s bedroom floor with cheap wine between them and Atlas with his parents. “His dad would know how it feels,” Matt remembers saying.

“I can come over soon,” Matt says, getting up and slipping on the nearest pair of socks he can find on the floor of his bed. “You might need to send me the address again.”

“No, don’t,” Shiro says, his words almost drunk-like in their slurred timing. “Matt, god, don’t waste your time I’m just...so fucking tired…”

“Okay. Okay. Talk to me. Do you have Atlas?” Matt sits back on his bed, hunched over and holding his tablet.

“Yes. I’m rocking him but he’s just still crying--”

“Turn him so he’s on his side. There’s something else too, just a second…” Matt opens his laptop on his desk and opens up a document shared throughout all the Holts. Together, they’ve made a full encyclopedia of information about babies, with each detailing their own experiences with Atlas and advice on how to keep him pacified. Shiro doesn't know, because if he did they know that he would be insistent that they not spent energy like that on him. His fault. Shouldn't have become part of their family then. “Oh, yeah. Just start shushing him quietly.”

“...okay,” Shiro says, and Matt hears shifting fabric and soft shushing beginning. “Is it working?” he asks in a hushed tone after a few minutes.

“Yes. Thank you. I swear I’d be so lost without you all. I miss…” Shiro trails off.

“Keith,” Matt supplies. He knows that Shiro hates him for it, but Keith and Shiro aren’t meant to be apart so long. They aren’t people who do that. Matt can say it with the confidence he has when stating rocket science concepts and when he says that Shiro’s wedding was rushed.

“Matt.”

“I’m serious. How long has it been since you two even--”

“Please. Don’t talk about him. It’s been a while, okay? It’s been a long time. I’m just tired.”

“Okay.”

“Okay.”

“Tell Atlas his Godfather loves him. And sleep, Shiro. You need it."

 

* * *

 

(What were we thinking, with our destructive love?)

 

* * *

 

The paladins will always be Hunk’s family.

The future wouldn’t be able to do anything about it. And all he could think about, as he accepted the group video chat, was that he needed to see his family again.

And there they were, waving and whistling as he connected. Everyone looks healthy, he notices with a pleased smile. Pidge has a smudge of grease on her cheekbone, and Allura and lance are together with coffee mugs. “Nice beard!” Lance calls, and Hunk grins. He'd grown it out after Shay mentioning off-handedly that it made him look like a rugged sweetheart. 

“It’s great to see everyone,” Allura says, clapping her hands together. Hunk smiles, looking at each square on his screen containing a person he loved. Except…

“Where’s Shiro and Keith?”

The call had been initiated by Lance, so Hunk makes eye contact with him. He doesn’t miss how the others avert their gazes.

“See, uh… this isn’t just about planning a meetup. This is an intervention.”

“Ah.”

“I know.”

The mood turns serious. Pidge clears her throat. “I keep thinking of how fucked up everything’s gotten between them.”

“Language,” Lance mutters.

“Fuck off. Anyway, does anyone else keep thinking back to the wedding?”

Hunk does. It was a catalyst, of sorts. The more Shiro talked about the wedding while it was being planned, the less Keith emerged from his quarters. It wasn’t like cold water. Keith couldn’t have been eased into it. It was more like toxic air that Keith told everyone was fine in the beginning but was really killing him slowly.

And he didn’t deserve it. Shiro didn’t either.

Hunk looks up to see everyone nodding slowly. Allura looks pained. “I saw them before it.” she doesn’t need to say anymore.

“Do you remember the best man speech?” Lance asks. “Jesus.”

The speech in question was interesting. Throughout the entire ceremony, Hunk had seen Keith with Krolia’s arm around his shoulder, the hand of his other arm clenching hers tightly. Poker faces and tight smiles were the only things that graced his face that night. But the speech was the most beautiful thing Hunk had ever heard come from Keith’s mouth. Every word was honey and hope. But the way he said it was stilting and awkward as if he hadn’t been the one to write it, though everyone knew it was him from the long hours they found him on his tablet, coffee cooling beside him. He remembers each of them taking turns carrying him to his bed at night and tucking him in. 

“I think their collision was just too big,” Allura whispers. “They were both too big.”

A beat. It’s as though a shadow had crossed their conversation.

“Can I tell you guys something?” Pidge. She sounds like she doesn’t want to. “It’s between me and Keith, but I think you should all know what he’s going through right now. Right after the ceremony, when everyone was dancing, he asked me to dance. I accepted, but he led to the top of this hill. I twirled him, he twirled me back, and I thought that it was all good until I noticed he’d started crying.”

“...Jesus,” Lance says, hushed.

“Yeah. And I knew that he didn’t want comfort, so I said that I needed a break, and we sat down. Then he started talking about anything he could think of. The color of the flowers. What type of coffee his mom likes. And he just kept crying through all of it, but he pretended he wasn’t and he knew that I could see his tears but I pretended I couldn’t see them too.”

Hunk knows that tonight he’d mourn the loss of a life where all they were thinking about was whether or not they’d live another day.

“We need them back beside each other,” Lance declares. Hunk wonders when they’d all realized that their relationship was romantic. Maybe somewhere between the third or fourth time they’d died for each other. “We need to get them back together.”

“I don’t think we need to,” Hunk says. “They’ll get there.”

“How?” Lance demands. “Shiro’s exhausted from trying to raise Atlas himself. Keith _cried_ over a wedding he didn’t want to happen, doing god knows what with the Marmora all alone.”

“He has Krolia,” Pidge corrects.

“Do you really think that’s enough? He’s lost the love of his life.” Pidge nods grudgingly, her eyes saddening. “I say we--”

“They don’t need an intervention. Hunk’s right,” Allura cuts in. “I love you with all my heart, Lance, but they’ll come back together on their own.”

“And I love _you_ with all my heart, hon,” Lance replies, “But this isn’t something we can just hope for. Don’t tell me there’s another metaphor about ‘collisions’ or ‘true love’ you’re going to use.”

“There isn’t one,” Hunk smiles. Allura smiles back. “They’re Shiro and Keith. That’s enough.”

 

* * *

 

(The love that made us kneel.)

 

* * *

 

Seeing everyone again feels like coming home.

Shiro wishes he could split his attention throughout each and every one of them, but he settles for greeting them all with Atlas in his stroller and catching up as much as time allows. Allura and Lance are disgustingly tripping over each other in love (with a wedding planned and trying for a baby, Lance tells him with a smile that takes up half his face), while Pidge and Hunk tell Shiro about their successes and hopes for the near future.

After saying all there is he can think of, he asks the question that’s been rattling in his mind for as long as he’s been here. “...where’s Keith?”

“Inside,” Pidge says, with a smirk like she can tell everything he’s thinking. Knowing her, she likely does. Shiro subconsciously rubs at the back of his head. “He came before all of us. We already saw him. He might be in the cafeteria.”

“Alright,” Shiro says, trying for an even tone, playing cool like this was just a casual question. _Just._ “Might as well go catch up with him. I was hungry, too.”

“Okay,” Pidge replies simply, her mouth twitching. Shiro nods a bit, clicks his tongue, and starts pushing Atlas along towards the cafeteria before Pidge stops him with a hand on his arm. “I’ve got him. Go catch up and eat,” she says.

Shiro hesitates, before accepting and pressing a light kiss to Atlas’s forehead. He’s asleep. “Thank you.”

“No problem. Go, dork.”

Shiro steps through the hallways with unease about him. His steps echo. He’s sure that Keith would be able to hear them from where he is, and that fills Shiro with something he can’t place. The feeling of being so, so close to him; they’ve been apart for so long.

These hallways are ingrained in Shiro’s mind. Closer than the back of his palm--he didn’t dedicate his academic career and dreams of space to his hand.

And it feels so much smaller when he walks up to the open hall. So much more sterile. He braces himself for seeing Keith again. He’s not there.

Relief and disappointment come in equal amounts. He wants to see Keith. He doesn’t know if he’s ready. Shiro sighs, starting back to get Atlas when he notices the door for the roof open. It should be locked, he thinks. Amusement creeps in unexpectedly. He’s making for the stairs before he realizes it.

Keith is there. Shiro wishes he didn’t notice the long hair or the way his body pushed and pulled. He can’t help the immediate response his body has to seeing Keith. For a second, just a second, he forgets the strain between them and notices just how perfect he looks, leaning over the balcony. There’s nothing else he wants to do than slip in beside him, see where his gaze is directed and look exactly at the point he is.

Just for a second though. Keith turns his head back and as soon as they lock eyes Shiro is reminded of how messed up everything is. “Hi,” he says. _I wish everything were back to what it was. I miss you so much my stomach wants to eat itself,_ he thinks.

Silence, in which Shiro rethinks his greeting over again and again.

“Hi,” Keith says. His voice near destroys Shiro. “You can, uh, come over here if you want.” “--Thanks.” He walks over, ever-so aware of Keith’s eyes on him as he does. They’re heavy any violet and make Shiro feel like he’s turned inside out. “So. How are you?” He hates where they are now. They both hate small talk. 

“Fine. You?”

It’s getting dark. He can see the sky reflected on Keith’s face, all melting dusk. “Fine.”

“...How’s Curtis?” His name sounds odd on Keith’s tongue; he’s never said it much.

“Well, I wouldn’t know.” The words come out easier than he expected. The divorce was easier than he expected.

Keith scoffs. “You’re his husband. Of course you’d know.” Oh. _Oh._

“You don’t know.” The question comes out a statement.

“Don’t know what?” Keith is aggravated. He’s never been really angry with Shiro, save for when he first met him. It’s always been annoyance and stubbornness though, and always for Shiro’s sake. Never anger.

“We’re divorced. Have been for a while. I thought you knew.”

Keith’s eyebrows shoot up. “Oh. Sorry, I--I didn’t know.”

“Don’t say sorry.” It’s the same words he said when Keith had said ‘I love you’ to him before the wedding. But the words are different now, a different meaning. The number of nights he’s tossed and turned in bed mulling over the three words is ridiculous. The number of nights he doesn’t are as far and in-between as the ones Atlas doesn’t cry.

It seems like Keith notices too because his face shutters and he turns back to the balcony. He shuts down just as quick as he did when he was still an angry orphan who escaped to--this very roof, actually. It took years for Shiro to coax him out of his shell. The ache he feels when he realizes that he might be back at the start point makes him look away too.

Shiro opens his mouth to ask something mundane again in an attempt to right the mood but Keith cuts him off. “Look. I know we’re both distant right now but I’m going to say something, okay? I don’t care if it ruins anything at this point. There’s nothing to ruin now, not since the--anyway. I loved you. I really did. Not just platonic. Maybe it was at the start. But it wasn’t when I said it the first time, and it wasn’t when I said it the second.”

Shiro opens his mouth, closes it. This is Keith’s time.

The boy--no, man--in question turns back towards the balcony before grumbling, “Maybe I do now.”

It knocks Shiro’s breath out. “Keith…” he gives him a second to breathe, breathe in the loaded, silent air before asking breathlessly, “When did you fall back in love with me?”  The way it sounds makes Shiro grimace. He doesn’t want to sound like he’s cocky. He just wants closure. He wants to go back, he wants to go back.

“I never fell out of it,” Keith says, like an admission. Shiro doesn’t know what to say.

“Well, you must’ve. I heard about a fling. I don’t know. Something here. Something there.” It’s fishing, trying to dodge the best thing that’s happened to him in years. Shiro regrets it immediately.

“You’re kidding.” Keith turns back to look at Shiro, grips a hand on the railing, incredulous.“That kind of love? God, that kind of shit? Falling in there? That’s the kind of pit you can’t come out of.”

“What did you do?” Shiro’s heart is pumping in his ears.

Keith tilts his head to look up at the sky, almost serenely. The arch of his neck looks like the moonlight Shiro sees patches of on his sheets when he wakes in the middle of the night. “I tried to crawl and climb and pull myself out. I got a ladder. I made someone toss me a rope. I spent years mastering how to scale a mountain. Twenty people used their limbs to form a chain. My mom hired a helicopter. I broke every single fingernail. I tried every fucking day.”

“...Did it work?” He’s breathless, stomach twisting.

“No. No, it didn’t. Don’t feel guilty, though. I dug the hole. I didn’t come out when it was shallower. If you’re asking if I regret it, then nah.” The smile is still there. It clenches a tight fist around Shiro’s heart. “You were kinda cosmic. What’d I expect? I didn’t regret it. I never regretted a single moment of loving you.”

Shiro wants to throw everything down, wants to give Keith everything all of a sudden, but Keith chugs on, his words fast and tumbling.

“And I’d always wanted good things for you. But now I realize that I was always selfish. It was always about _me_ needing to see you safe, _me_ and my stupid Garrison constant that I needed to keep--”

“You were never selfish.”

“But I _was_ ,” Keith argues. “The only time I knew I wasn’t being selfish enough was letting you get married without telling you everything first.”

“You said you love me,” Shiro says, and he can barely hear himself.

“And I fucking meant it.” Keith clenches his jaw. His voice trembles.

There’s a pause, before Shiro asks with tears in his eyes and a breaking voice, “What do you want?”

Keith turns to him, tears streaming down his face. Shiro reaches up impulsively to wipe them away, but Keith catches his hand and holds it in a tight grip. _“All I want is to be selfish again.”_   It catches Shiro's throat with the brutal honesty and unflinching gaze. Then he catches Shiro’s face in his cupped hands and presses the lightest kiss on his lips. “Tell me if this is okay,” he whispers, voice raw and beautiful. Shiro wonders, briefly, how he could have married someone without a voice like this when they love him. If only he could hear Keith's voice without keeling over.

“I wish I could start over,” Shiro says just as softly, because ‘I love you’ wasn’t enough for him. Everything led back to Keith. “I just--I wish I could rip out my heart and point out everything--”

And then Keith pulls him back down again. It’s soft, so soft, and Shiro wants to lean in and deepen it but he decided to let Keith decide. “I want to meet Atlas,” Keith says fervently. “I want to see everything, everything.”

Shiro replies by tugging him down onto the granite floor and sinking down with lips aimed right where they’re supposed to be.

 

* * *

 

(Devastating in every definition of the word. But my god was it easy to fall into you.)  

 

**Author's Note:**

> [tumblr](https://beefy-keefy.tumblr.com/) [twitter](https://twitter.com/beefykeefy?lang=en) (where im more active)


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